What happened to you at Swanson, or at LTI-Monroe, was not okay.

South Grand Street, Monroe, the south end of town. For most of its life the place was the Louisiana Training Institute at Monroe, LTI-Monroe to anyone who'd been there, and by the time the U.S. Justice Department walked through in August 1996 the sign said Swanson Correctional Center for Youth. Same fence. What the Justice Department wrote to the Governor a year later, on August 6, 1997, was that it had found evidence of sexual abuse and assault at each of Louisiana's four secure juvenile facilities, Swanson among them, and a federal court in Baton Rouge then held the state under orders about those places until 2006. Swanson never closed. It's still there, and since 2013 it has a second campus at Columbia. If you were a kid locked up at either one, in any year, and a person who worked there crossed a line with you, this page is about you.

WatchingWatching: Louisiana's revival window for claims that had already run out closes June 14, 2027; Swanson is still open, and this page carries no filed record of conduct there after 2006 because we have not found one.

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6 questions. Your answers are private and go to one person.

This applies to you no matter what

You were a kid there in the '80s or the '90s and you've assumed for decades that the clock ran out on you, which it did, once, until Louisiana reopened it in 2021 and 2022 and the state Supreme Court let that stand on June 12, 2024; the date you have now is June 14, 2027, and it's the reason this page is here at all. The chain is in the deadline section, all of it.
If it was later, 2010, 2018, last year: Swanson never closed. The 1997 record is the one we can cite here, but it isn't the only record that counts for you. The deadline works differently for those years, and mostly in your favour; the deadline section says how.
It was the Columbia campus, not Monroe. Same facility on OJJ's books since it opened in May 2013, same defendant, same page.
You were 18, 19 or 20 at the time. OJJ keeps young people in secure care past their eighteenth birthday, and Louisiana counts an adult's claim under a different article of the Civil Code. Different clock, not a closed door.
You live in Texas or Mississippi or Arkansas now. A suit against the State of Louisiana has to be brought in a Louisiana state court, the statute says so, and you don't need to be there for it to start.

What the public record says about Swanson, and when: the 1996 investigation, the 1997 case and letter, the orders that ran to 2006

None of what follows is ours. The investigation was the Justice Department's, the case was filed in federal court in Baton Rouge, the findings were written to the Governor of Louisiana, and the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse keeps the docket. Every line links to where it came from. Where a complaint is the source it's an allegation and we say so; where the Justice Department is the source it's the finding of an investigation, not a court's verdict, and we say that too.

April 25, 1996

The Justice Department put Louisiana on notice that day: it was opening an investigation of the state's secure juvenile facilities, under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act. Then came the visits. Its people walked Swanson three separate times, August 19 to 21, 1996, then August 26 to 28 the same year, then once more on January 21 and 22, 1997. Bridge City, Jetson and Tallulah got the same treatment. Those dates are from the letter that followed. U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division.

January 2, 1997

In re Juvenile Justice Facilities, docket 3:97-cv-00001, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana. A civil rights case over the conditions inside the state's secure juvenile facilities, with Swanson Correctional Center for Youth and Louisiana Training Institute - Monroe both listed as defendant facilities. One campus, two names. The issues logged on the docket include sexual abuse by other residents, sex with staff and sexual harassment by staff, alongside physical and chemical restraints, assaults by staff, medical care and mental health care. A complaint alleges; it doesn't decide. Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse.

July 16, 1997

Judge Frank J. Polozola set up a master juvenile docket and a separate file for each of four facilities: Tallulah, Jetson, Swanson and LTI-Bridge City. One judge, four files, the same state on the other side of every one. Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse.

August 6, 1997

The findings letter, written to Governor Mike Foster by the Civil Rights Division and public today on the Justice Department's own site. Its words about all four facilities: "We also found evidence of sexual abuse and assault at each of the four facilities." And: "at all facilities, little attention has been paid to sexual activity between juveniles and between officers and juveniles." On Swanson by name the letter reports fractures to jaws, noses, cheeks and eye sockets "especially at Tallulah and Swanson," an infirmary log showing at least 16 different children injured by trauma in the twenty days between December 10 and December 30, 1996, gang fights of 15 to 20 boys, isolation used as punishment for minor offenses, and children refused sick call when staff decided they'd misbehaved. The letter's conclusion was that conditions violated the First, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Findings of an investigation, not a judgment. U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division.

1998 to 2006

The federal government's own suit, United States v. Louisiana, 98-00947, became the lead case in 1998 and was consolidated with the rest. Louisiana settled rather than try it, and by the Clearinghouse's dating the court's orders under that settlement ran from 1998 to 2006. Eight years of a federal judge looking over the state's shoulder at Swanson. A settlement admits nothing, and the state admitted nothing. Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse.

We checked this on September 22, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from 1998 to 2006. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who can be held responsible in a Swanson Center for Youth lawsuit

One defendant, and it isn't the guard. Swanson is a state facility, run by Louisiana's Office of Juvenile Justice, and the Office is an arm of the State of Louisiana. A man who abused a kid in a locked dorm answers for himself, if he can be found and if he has anything, which mostly he doesn't. The state hired him, put him alone on a unit with children, was told in writing by the Justice Department on August 6, 1997 what its investigators had found in the state's facilities, and it's the one with a treasury. A suit over Swanson is a suit against the State of Louisiana through OJJ. That's who pays.

Suing the state changes three things, and a lawyer walks you through each. Louisiana caps what the state pays any one person for general damages, the pain and the years, at $500,000, under R.S. 13:5106; medical care and lost earnings sit outside that cap. The case has to be filed in a Louisiana state court, not a federal one and not the court where you live now; the same statute says so. And for anyone 21 or older the law asks for paperwork before the state is even named in the petition, a certificate from a lawyer and one from a licensed mental health professional, which is the firm's job to gather and not yours to worry about tonight.

Your deadline: the Louisiana statute of limitations for sexual abuse at Swanson or LTI-Monroe

Nobody gets told they're out here. Read this once, then let a lawyer read your dates, because the year picks the rule and the rules differ. The kid who was under 18 there, at LTI-Monroe or at Swanson, back in the '80s, the '90s or the early 2000s, has until June 14, 2027 and shouldn't spend that time deciding. The 2015 kid may have no deadline at all. The one who was 19 has a shorter clock that may or may not have started.

The first of those took four years of law to arrive at, and you're allowed to skip the story and keep the date. Louisiana's old rule had run out on most people by their late twenties, and it stayed that way until Act 322 of 2021 rewrote R.S. 9:2800.9 so a claim for sexual abuse of a minor no longer prescribes; a 2022 act then reached back and revived the claims the old rule had already killed. The Diocese of Lafayette didn't accept that. It took the revival to the Louisiana Supreme Court and won there first, on March 22, 2024, when the court struck the revival down, then lost on rehearing, in Bienvenu v. Defendant 1, when the same court reversed itself on June 12, 2024. The Legislature hadn't waited on the court; it had passed Act 481 of 2024 in the meantime. That's where the date comes from, and the act's own words are the ones to hold onto, that a person whose claim was barred "shall be permitted to file an action under R.S. 9:2800.9 on or before June 14, 2027." Hard date. The historic cohort, lawyers call it.

Abused there as a minor more recently, the 2010s or since? Different arithmetic. If your claim hadn't already run out by June 2021, the 2021 law says it doesn't run out at all, and the June 2027 date isn't yours. Whether it had run out turns on your birth year and the year it happened, and that's a calculation a lawyer does with your dates in front of her, not something you settle by reading a web page. And the ones who'd already turned 18, or 19, or 20, still in OJJ custody? Different article, Civil Code 3496.2. Three years. It runs from the injury, or from the day law enforcement tells you who the offender was, if that day comes later. A lawyer reads your dates. That's the whole ask.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You never told anyone. Not your mother, not the counselor, not the judge who sent you there.
You told an officer and were put in isolation for it. The 1997 letter says isolation at Swanson was used as punishment for minor things; a lawyer will not be surprised.
It was another boy, and staff let it happen or slept through it. The Justice Department counted that too; 'sexual abuse by residents' sits on the docket next to 'sex with staff.'
You've been locked up since, as an adult. Not a reason to be turned away anywhere, and it isn't one here.
You can't remember the year or the officer's name, only the dorm and the sound of the door. Start there.
You'd rather nobody dug up your juvenile record. Say so on the call; that's a conversation, not a bar.

Swanson, LTI-Monroe and the Columbia campus

You know which one it was; the questions just need it said. Swanson Center for Youth is at 4701 South Grand Street in Monroe, and it was the Louisiana Training Institute at Monroe before that. The Columbia campus opened in May 2013, when youth and staff moved there while Monroe was renovated, and OJJ runs both today. The other three facilities in the 1997 case each have a page of their own. Tallulah is at /tallulah-correctional-center-survivors. Jetson, in Baker, is at /jetson-center-survivors. Bridge City, out in Jefferson Parish, is at /bridge-city-center-survivors. Somewhere else in Louisiana? Third option in the first question, and say where.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue Swanson Center for Youth for sexual abuse?

You'd sue the State of Louisiana, which runs it through the Office of Juvenile Justice. Swanson, under its old name and its new one, was a defendant facility in a federal civil rights case filed January 2, 1997, and the Justice Department's letter of August 6, 1997 said it found evidence of sexual abuse and assault at each of the state's four secure juvenile facilities. Whether you can depends mostly on your birth year, how old you were and when it happened, which is what the questions above sort out.

Is there a deadline to file a claim for abuse at a Louisiana juvenile facility?

Depends which group you're in. If you were a minor and your claim had already run out under Louisiana's old rule, the revival window under Act 481 of 2024 closes June 14, 2027. If it hadn't run out by June 2021, the 2021 law says it doesn't run out at all. If you were 18 or older, Civil Code article 3496.2 gives three years from the injury or from the day police tell you who it was, whichever is later. A lawyer confirms which one is yours. That's the call.

What did the Justice Department find at Swanson?

Its August 6, 1997 letter to the Governor, still on the Justice Department's site, says investigators found evidence of sexual abuse and assault at each of the four facilities they toured, Swanson included, and that little attention had been paid to sexual activity between officers and juveniles. About Swanson by name it reports broken jaws and eye sockets, 16 children injured in twenty days in December 1996, gang fights and isolation used as punishment. Those are findings of an investigation, not a verdict, and the state settled without admitting any of it.

How much can I get from the State of Louisiana?

Nobody can tell you from a web page, and we won't try. What the law says is this: R.S. 13:5106 caps what the state pays one person for general damages at $500,000, with medical care and lost earnings outside the cap. What any one case is worth inside that is a conversation with a lawyer who has your facts.

What does it cost?

Here, nothing. Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing, and you owe no costs or expenses either.

I was there when it was still LTI-Monroe. Does the name change matter?

No. The federal court listed both names, Louisiana Training Institute - Monroe and Swanson Correctional Center for Youth, as the same defendant facility, and OJJ has run it under the Swanson name since. The first question above lists both so you can pick the one you knew.

Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer

I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.

What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.

I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.

Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.

What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.

You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.

How this works

ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed Louisiana attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.

You never pay a dollar

Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.